Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Flickr Favorites : Traditional Costume Scheveningen, The Netherlands

Today in the Flickr Favourites it's the turn of the traditional costume of Scheveningen in The Netherlands. The Flickr Favorites posts were so far all about the traditional costumes around the former inland sea Zuiderzee (now Lake IJsselmeer); now we go to the North Sea coast of Holland. Scheveningen developed from a small fishing village into a big seaside resort and part of the city of The Hague. The costume is a very solid one and mostly dark colored, except for the Sunday shirt and shawl which are often soft blue, lilac, beige or soft green. The cap (called "mop muts" in the Scheveningen dialect) is from lace and stands somewhat at the back of the head, so that it often seems as if it is coming down. It is fixed with two upright pearl-pins, there, where the silver head iron ends in the beautiful golden oval ornaments. The black cape has a very low neckat the back to make room for the cap.

This Scheveningen costume is very dear to me because my grandma came from Scheveningen and I remember her and her friends all wearing traditional costume. I actually inherited her costume and I do wear it sometimes at special occasions :) And two picture postcards from my own collection.

Most of the clothes were of wool and linen. Cotton was very rare (had to be imported) and was only used in some costumes to set a colorful accent. With the modern fabrics coming up in the 20th century, they also started to use those. My costume (which was from my grandma) is almost completely of wool (also the red underskirt); only the under bodice/shirt (which you can't see) is from unbleached coarse linen.